.,¸¸,.»§«,¸¸,.·´¯`·.,¸¸,.»§«*¥*»§«,¸¸,.·´¯`·.,¸¸,.»§«·.,¸¸,.I come to you not to praise CSICOP, certainly, but to bury it! Such should be its woeful wage!
...And I must caution the listener that it is not
Skeptics I have a problem with or that I am merely bored with the rationality CSICOPians only
pretend to dispense... true skeptics are not the issue! They are in comparison persons to be revered above all others and are
welcome company ...
honored team members...
boon companions...!
They are the most interesting of us, the most knowledgeable of us, and the ones to instruct us the most! They are not to be confused with scurrilous skepti-bunkies, ponderous pelicanists, or insipid CSICOPians, scurvy klasskurtxians... the antagonists regarded in the rest of this essay!
It remains...
...A righteous pox on CSICOP, that Committee for the
Serially Insentient Commitment of Obdurate Persons, a collection of fringe flogging front-men and intellectually constipated imps of anti-science! Lately their ranks swell with the even more deceitful and cross-purposed, and their smug smirks of corn-fed contempt works its unctuous way through our cyberspace like an unhealthy mass worried uncomfortably through an internet's electronic bowels.
A pox upon them, again, for measure.
They are
not what they vociferously portray themselves to be! Instead, they
provide for and
nurture the informational void that the hapless only attempt to fill, and then they complacently
demonize those hapless for their, many times, sincere attempts to address that unnecessary void that CSICOP
founded, actually, and must busily
facilitate!
They've duplicitously set themselves up as a
clearing house, reader, for hardnosed rationality and impartial science! They've populated their ranks with lettered
ringers of
dubious veracity! They've cloaked themselves in the too proud mantel of a convenient
lap-dog science engineered to grind only the axes they
contrive to grind!
Axes of denial, Axes of denunciation, and Axes of refutation... ...Axes well ground, I add, and then fatuously brandished like righteous swords in an
astonishing display of arrogant hubris (disguised as humble piety). A Pox!
Astonishingly, they proclaim their
six point covenant with the
unwashed masses they actually despise, establish their
thin veneer of trustworthy credibility, and then publish their *balanced rational worldview* in a six-point plan of
stated intent, the subject of this essay. That six point plan is a cheesy fraud!
Like most frauds it is anything but balanced, actually. It is a canted mess of reflex denials, character assassinations, and bald duplicities. Let's look at that six point covenant, then, and examine each of the points in turn...
CSICOP's first point is especially stalwart sounding... fairly ringing with lofty ideals... nearly oozing good intentions, high standards, and best practice...
"1. Maintain a network of people interested in critically examining paranormal, fringe science, and other claims, and in contributing to consumer education."One is immediately compelled to examine a *demonstrated* integrity of this aforementioned *network* of suggested efficaciousness. Founded by Dr. Paul Kurtz, a man constitutionally unable to perceive a difference between a UFO and a traditional leprechaun, this *network* seems, at first blush, to be a paragon of
refined education, advanced
experiential acumen, and
incisive brainpower!
Predictably, as with everything else regarding CSICOP, appearances can be deceiving. Consider the unrelated and immaterial "Doctor's" degrees of many of the CSICOPian principals, as in the case of Dr. Joe Nickell, and the ridiculously canted, assumptive and NON-networking remarks
he's made (among significant others) as if it were
he (an English major!) who would proscribe what
was and what was
not acceptable to think about, for the rest of us. Dr. Nickell, sadly, is typical of the kind of person closely associated with CSICOP. His cant is obvious! What *service* is provided with this anti-network of canted expressions and immaterial persons?
The (
overwhelmingly male and so affected) persons involved with CSICOP are a demonstrably canted lot decidedly incapable of any balanced examination... if for no other reason than that there is so
little investigation actually going on! Indeed, the word
investigation is a component of the very acronym they use to identify themselves, forgetting that it is publicly touted that "investigation is the middle name" of your garden variety CSICOPian...
Still,
it refrains from same! CSICOP, instead, prefers to portentously pronounce on what is acceptable thinking in the form of scientific sounding dictates of dubious veracity, disingenuous assumptive-ness, and biased incompleteness.
At it's head... and as typified by its adherents near that head, CSICOP is a conflicted entity driven only by the denial of
hostile mal-educated
ideologues and is
not a network of credible and balanced persons interested in critical examinations of
anything... but its own
obtuse agenda. It is a network only of obstinate denial, conflicted cant, and obvious bias! Verily, and at the last, the hapless consumer is
ill served by this parody of science!
The CSICOPian second point is another insult to our aggregate intelligence...
"2. Prepare bibliographies of published materials that carefully examine such claims.""Careful examination" of paranormal claims is
airily abandoned in the production of bibliographies heavily (even admittedly!)
stacked with researchers who toe the CSICOPian party-line. Since the very beginning (and as typified by the Dennis Rawlins imbroglio over the "StarBaby" paper) research critical *of* or in opposition *to* that CSICOPian party-line remains with
convenient and very
limited citation in these not so efficacious *bibliographies...* or why was "StarBaby" published in "Fate" and not in the "Skeptical Inquirer". Why can't Dr. David Rudiak get a peer review for his Mogul Work in the same canted CSICOPian rag?...On to the third point:
The third point would be more funny were it not for the dire implications it makes regarding a complete and balanced research
outside the cloistered CSICOP paradigm CSICOPia would promote and
stridently insists upon...
3. Encourage research by objective and impartial inquiry in areas where it is needed. (emphasis mine...)This is rolling-on-the-floor-and-clenching-near-incontinent-cheeks-together laughable! Where can your garden variety CSICOPian
not be shown to be
anything but tediously
subjective regarding every aspect of their conduct... and the corrosive performance of that conduct? Where is their *
encouragement* possible given their character assassinations and reflex research discriminations? Their hoaxes and ringer placements? Their campaigns of ideological suppression and sponsor intimidation? Their
bullying, their individual
harassment, and their tyrannous
aggravation?
How is a person with an alternative thought *
encouraged* in such an atmosphere, or in the scurrilous actions of famous stage-clowns like Penn and Teller who lied to their guests, otherwise misrepresented their scurrilous intentions, and made them
all look like buffoons, nut-bags and public whackos? What manner of "Bull-Shit" (
Their choice of title) is
that? CSICOP is
far from
'objective', miles away from
'impartial', and, decidedly not the
best choice to decide where
'inquiry is needed.' They perform a treacherous
disservice, at best, to suggest that they do!
The fourth point is key to the infrastructure of institutional
infidelity and the transmission of an ignoble CSICOPian meme!
"4. Convene conferences and meetings."Oh... they do enough of that! Rest assured. They encourage all sorts of little splinter groups to grow up, clone-like, in their image... other busy little imps to caper around the book-burning fire...
harsh infernos where reputations get burned at the stake and where the catechisms of the jealous status quo are rehearsed in the flickering light and stinking smoke...
No, any resemblance to balanced "conferences and meetings" is dissolved in the Ad Hominem
attacks, derisive
ridicule, and easy
dismissal of the
opposition thinker at these meetings. Audiences are encouraged to laugh and the provoking speaker is visibly pleased with the expression of that laughter it's been reported. Sounds more like a college frat party than a meeting of serious... hardnosed intellectuals.
Clearly -- these meeting are *coven conferences* described by some as
Scientistic "Inquisition" assemblies! Their purpose is to
dictate thought,
proscribe their canted eschatology, and
rehearse their *approved* scripture. All hail Doctors Kurtz and Shermer, our teachers, leaders, and holders of the guiding light! FEH!
The fifth point proves that their intimated balance is a self-admitted fraud!
"5. Publish articles that examine claims of the paranormal."Asked previously and answered, reader! "Examine" how, given that there is so little (if any)
investigation, going on, to support an examination! Besides, what further needs to be said than that their publishing accomplishments include the churlish screeds of one Kal K. Korff? 'Nuff said!The sixth and final point provokes in me a -keen- astonishment that a card carrying CSICOPian can -ever- behold his own reflection in a mirror!
"6. Do not reject claims on a priori grounds, antecedent to inquiry, but examine them objectively and carefully.""A priori" means:
1. Proceeding from a known or assumed cause to a necessarily related effect;
deductive.
A priori, flatly, suggests the exact
opposite of a process of going where the data might lead -- the aspiration of any
true scientist! The history of CSICOP is, again
flatly, rich with the direct antithesis of "following the data."
They are patent
cherry-pickers for evidence that supports their contentions and, by admission, dismissive of evidence that
doesn't support their contentions! This is widely and competently reported. So, in this sense they are
very "a priori" when they very unctuously proclaim... that they are not!
A priori also means:
2a. Derived by or designating the process of reasoning without reference to particular facts or experience, or, 2
b. Knowable without appeal to particular experience.
The particular experience (or bias) of your friendly neighborhood CSICOPian is
very much a factor in their, so-called, inquiry! Claims are measured first with a rubric of: can that claim first be *true* or not! That which is determined to be incapable of *truth*, to begin with (by dictate of fishy fiat!), is
removed from serious consideration and ridiculed! "UFOs cannot exist," first, so an inquiry regarding whether they exist or not, is moot!
They
can't happen... period, without regard to conflicting evidence of
any type. They make up their minds about a question, and prosecute
that, without once validating the question, which, facilitating
them, must remain unasked. They are very much
a priori in this sense, too. ...and they say that they are not... See how this works?
Finally. A priori means:
3. [The Determination] made
before or
without examination; not supported by factual study.
The preceding is the
obvious method of the garden variety CSICOPian, who has made up his mind, "thank-you-very-much," and would prefer not to be confounded with the facts, if you'd please.
=Forget= that this is proclaimed by the concerned to be "not so," ...a priori describes them
perfectly reader!
"A priori," and not "investigation" ...would appear to be their middle name. Additionally "
careful and objective" are duplicitous malapropisms they employ, words carefully chosen to mask a very real agenda of *
think-cloaking*,
acrimonious axe-grinding, and rank intellectual
fascism.
Clearly, a
reasonable assessment of these six points, then, shows them to be more CSICOPian artful dodge... than stated aims to which they might bravely aspire! They are red herrings scripted to deceive and mislead,
not to edify and enlighten!
CSICOP's six points of shame are
carnival hucksterisms,
empty platitudes which contrive to get you into their
big CSICOPian tent for the scientistic (sic) revival meeting! Once there, smooth faced scient-evangelists like (the hugely disappointing!) Penn and Teller, the not so amazing Randi, or the bellicose and whiney Dr. Nickell (the fatuous Dr. McGaha!)... can perform their
unbalanced slights of hand!
Now
these guys, among others, are just slick scientistic-scripture pounding frauds with ulterior motives! They front an organization of similar myopic intellectualists, little men who steadfastly assert to the worried
credulous that there
is a place for *
everything*, and everything (read 'everybody'!) should be in its place!
I see them as spiritless men (few women) for a soulless organization as bereft of imagination as they are of creativity. It's no stretch that they are the nineteenth century proponents for the new dark ages threatened in our... 21st century.
Now I'm not a scientist, but an artist and a poet (...forgetting I was raised by a scientist and been around them all my life, and that I have a deep respect, admiration, and appreciation for the rules of science), I can call these CSICOPians as I see them
, smug proponents of unbrave institutional evil, a scourge of canted intellect, and a hurdle to the rising and advancing of the human spirit -- a torpedo for our potential!
As with other dark-age producing tyrants of the past, I patiently await the eventual demise of planet CSICOPia and I further anticipate the strident repudiation of their unctuous six point covenant of bald misdirection and oily obfuscation.
Their covenant, finally, is a back-stepping farce. Verily!
alienview@adelphia.netwww.AlienView.net
